I’m in a bit of a dilemma. Here’s some background information you need to know:
Teacher #1: AP Lang teacher who writes recommendations based on your resume and less on your personal qualities. My resume is filled with lab-research based extracurricular activities.
Teacher #2: Retired teacher who no longer teaches in my district and actually watched me conduct lab-research. However, she taught me freshman year and only 1 Quarter my junior year until my counselor switched me to another class.
Teacher #3: AP Psychology teacher who is fantastic and has seen my passion for both philosophy and biology, may write a very personal recommendation that’s very accurate, but it may not be as eloquent as #1 and #2. However, I wasn’t as good of a student in her class (I often didn’t pay attention in class) as I was in #1 and #2, yet for some reason it seems she likes me and my best friend the most of all her students.
Teacher #4: History teacher who’s had me sophomore year and senior year as well as Philosophy Club which I’ve been to for three years, I’ve gardened with her and she would expound upon my personal qualities as well as my desired fields of study.
Intellectual Vitality essay: based on why I love learning about cosmetics, the enjoyment I had with my cosmetic business, how it’s made me love my daily learning, and that it inspired me to conduct some bio-lab-research.
What Matters essay: about the tragedies occurring in my country, Iran, and how I will always be working, dying, learning for them so that I can "help dress them in the revolution they have dreamt for all their lives. Somewhat philosophical essay, and #4 can expound upon my interest in Iran.
Extracurriculars: here’s where it gets tricky. I go to 2 schools, a “home”-school which is my nearest public high school, and I take humanities classes at my “home”-school. But I also go to a magnet-school every other day where I take my science and math classes. At my magnet school is where I actually performed laboratory research. The laboratory research was for a grade, it was required, and it technically wasn’t an extracurricular. However, I used the research to collaborate internationally with Singaporean students and spent so many hours out of my weekends driving to the school to do my lab research. But to complicate things further, biology isn’t my main passion even though I am deeply curious about it----philosophy is.
So can I talk about my laboratory research as if it were an extracurricular activity? If I mentioned that I performed the research at school and it was mandatory, then my out-of-school activities look poor because I’ve only made a cosmetic business… but that cosmetic business made no revenue. Should I be transparent with Stanford and say “my business was registered with the IRS and I worked with international manufacturers…but no revenue was made?” Who should I pick for a recommendation? #1 or #2 or #3?
Feel free to ask me questions, I can provide more details.